So bees, lately I have been feeling down, frustrated, and a lot on the emotional side. I have been crying more than I have because I’m so overwhelmed. I don’t like feeling like this at all, it’s not me :(. I’m usually happy go lucky, but lately that’s not the case. In the last few months, alot has been going on and I’m not sure if that is what is causing me to feel like this or what. Fiance had an incident about 7 months ago, since then I’ve forgiven him and moved past it eventhough it still gets to me a little. Our relationship has become alot stronger since then and we are more excited than ever about the wedding. He makes sure I know it will never happen again.

In the past few months also, I have been doing SO much stuff for the wedding/getting stuff together and such since we are planning from out of state and will not be able to move to California until 45 days before the wedding. We just found out a couple weeks ago that we couldn’t move until then which changed our plans as far as planning goes because now we have to do it from Texas.

This is week are also my last days at my branch (I work for a bank) and starting Monday I will be full time instead of part time at a whole other branch. I’m excited and nervous all at the same time.

Also, the fear of stepping fully into my FI’s kids’ (from previous marriage) scares me alot. He has sole physical custody of them so they will start to live with us from August and on for the rest of our lives. Fiance is military and gave guardianship to his sister in California because both of our schedules out here would put them in daycare for 90% of the day and we didn’t want that. We wanted them to be taken care of more time than our schedules would have alotted out here in Texas. Their mother only gets to see them twice a month because she’s not a fit mother and lives from place to place. The kids love me, I know they do, but I can’t help but feel like if I get too attached and act as their mother, I might get bummed when they have to go see their mom. Fiance hasn’t been able to LIVE with them for the last 4 years (they are ages 5 and 6) due to the military being deployed for a year and then out here in Texas for 3 years right after. So it will be a new parenting experience for him too. I can’t help but feel that I can’t get attached and step in to do the things a mother would do because I’m NOT their MOM. I know I will take the title “stepmom”, but I don’t want to act as a mother and then the kids ask why I do the things I do for them and why their mother doesn’t do those things :o/. Maybe I’m just over-worried? I’m stressed about having kids around all the time because I have never had anything like it? Over thinking the title?

I am also a full time college student, so I have that to worry about. Finals are next week and then I’m taking the summer off to breathe a little.

Our wedding is in 4 months, so we are planning big time right now because we are away.

Last and final thing, is that we are 2 1/2 months away from moving from Texas to California. We are trying to prepare for jobs there before we get there that way we don’t start with nothing. Fiance is leaving Sunday to California for 2 weeks (he’s never been gone longer than 2 days and that was the only time he has been away in the 4 years we’ve been together), to go do the mandatory transition class for going from military to civilian and to also test and do agility tests for 3 different police departments while he is there to try and get a spot with one of them so he has something when we get there. I’m bummed cause he will be gone for that long AND he will get to see the kids and his family because they live there and here in San Antonio, I have no family or anything while he is away :(. For me, it’s not so easy to get something before we get there because I can’t just take off for 2 weeks to go out there for interviews :(. So I’m worried about having nothing when we get there and I still have bills to pay for me :o/. I am also stressed about finding a college over there because I don’t know the area hardly at all and we only have an “idea” of the area we maybe want to move. It all depends on his police dept thing I guess. I don’t know if I’m jealous cause he gets to see the kids on top of me missing him or if it’s just him being gone?

All of this has me down and I don’t know what to deal with first or what to think. I feel like I’m completely overwhelmed and I don’t know what to do with all this emotion that I am feeling. I never thought you could experience happy, sad, stressed, frustrated, excited, and confused all at the same time. Recently I’ve been really snappy with the Fiance and I feel so bad because it’s not me :(, but I feel like I can’t express how I feel any other way and I have no one else to talk to about it. It seems everytime I talk to him about things, it comes out wrong lately and I frustrate him and I tell him I will just keep it to myself then and he doesn’t want that because he says it’s “not healthy”, but then I don’t want to irritate him talking to him either. At times I feel jealous about the kids and that he had them with someone else and we have none yet, but I know that that can’t be changed. I love the kids alot, but wish we had kids of our own already. The other times they are visiting with us, I don’t feel as bad because I know I am better off than their mom anyway. I am planning on next year for the first OUR first kid.

Any advice bees from any of you that have been through any of this? What am I feeling do you think? Jealousy? Anger? Just overwhelmed and so everything seems to be wrong? I wish I knew 🙁 and how to fix it.

I don’t have advice about everything you said, but I have to say something about the stepkids. Yes, they have a biological mom, but they don’t know her, and YOU will be the only mother they know. You NEED to step in and get attached and act like their mom because they need a stable home life and parents who love them. Especially because they’re so young, you need stop thinking of them as your step kids and start thinking of them as your kids.

@Beckster329: I know, it’s just hard because I haven’t, in 25 years, ever had kids around and it’s hard to think about taking care of kids from someone else :(. I know I’m being a bit irrational and it stinks :(. I have known them since they were 2 and 1 yrs old, but of course they don’t remember that. I have taken care of them so far, but at times it just seems hard :o/

Multiple stress sources in your life all at once. I’ll talk about the kids.

I know so many people who view their stepmom or stepdad as their real “mom”/”dad”. Think of Bees who have chosen their stepdad to walk them down the isle instead of their dad? His kids are still young enough for you to raise and for them to acknowledge you as mom. They probably won’t call you mom right away, but it might come later.

I really suggest you guys read a book on parenting together. Not because you’re stupid, but because it might make you feel more prepared and at ease. No matter how planned a pregnancy is, nobody is ever 100% ready and prepared for all that parenting brings, so please don’t psych yourself out thinking about how new this is. Take it one day at a time, and you’ll see that in a few months, you will start seeing more than just a couple awkwardly welcoming 2 new kids…you’ll start seeing your very own little FAMILY. You’ll start falling in more and more in love with your hubby, you’ll start truly loving those kids as if they were your own. Those motherly instincts are engrained in who you are, and they will rise to the occasion! I think you’ll surprise yourself. Just wait and see.YOU CAN DO THIS!

Also, think of how much you love your Fiance. You are obviously IN LOVE with him since you’re choosing to spend the rest of your lives together. Think of all the wonderful qualities your Fiance has, and the things he does/says that melt your heart. All the good and beautiful inside of your Fiance, makes up a piece of who those little ones are. They are pure, in need of so much love, in search of feeling secure and FINALLY STABLE! It doesn’t matter if their mom is unfit or crazy.

@LuluInLove: This definitely puts it in a point of view for me that I have never really thought about. It makes me feel a bit better about it all and takes away a little stress. I guess I just have to wait it out and see :o). I am completely in love with my Fiance :o) and I just need to wait it all out I guess and not panic so much now even though its hard not to.

@JJsGirl_09: Good! I’m glad : ) You have so many things to worry and stress about, no wonder you’re overwhelmed. But really, just tackle each one as they come in somewhat chronological order. Don’t drive yourself nuts with all of it at once, wait for them to come and handle it.

Also, think of the good, and get excited about those things! Even if they are small! Being excited about little things will help ease any anxiety.

HUGS!! Wow. You DO have QUITE a lot going on in your life, and you’re pretty young, too, so, I would say much of what you’re feeling is very normal.

I am much older than you are; however, I’ve gone through a lot of what you’re currently facing. I don’t know if my words will be helpful or not, but I will be happy to share my experience with you.

I was in an LDR (my then-FI/now-DH lived in another state, several hours from me), and he, too, was a single dad. He has four kids, though two are adults, and two were young tweens/teens at the time of our marriage. They’re both teenagers now, and they live with us 50 percent of the time.

My wedding planning was complicated not only by the fact that Darling Husband lived in another state, but also because our venue was 1.5 hours from me. That’s certainly much closer than CA and TX; however, I had to make a three-hour round trip (plus the time to actually have a meeting) every time I needed to meet with some of my vendors.

Once Darling Husband and I were married, I also faced the incredible stress that you will face in leaving your current life behind to move to another state. Taking on a whole new set of realities immediately after planning a big, elaborate wedding, working full time, trying to sell and buy houses, becoming a wife and stepmother, and, in my case, also a pastor’s wife, was completely overwhelming. I even had to commute between my old and new “worlds” each week for almost the first year of our marriage until I could finally sell my house and resign from my position at work to relocate to be with Darling Husband and the kids full time.

I felt as if I had walked into the middle of a tornado. Suddenly, I had no control over almost anything in my life (vs. having had a great deal of control all of the years that I was single and living on my own.) It’s a huge change to have so many other people in your personal space and also having your time, schedule, and priorities essentially become dependent on the lives of so many other people. I cried a LOT for the first 18 months of my marriage. It was incredibly difficult. I would say that taking on the role of stepmother, even to the wonderful kids I have, was probably among the most stressful changes.

I am very blessed that my stepchildren’s mother and I get along extremely well. That is very helpful, since our children spend half of their time at her house and the other half at DH’s and mine. My kids definitely do not consider me their mother, because they already have a wonderful mom who is very involved in their lives. However, they do consider me to be a loving authority figure in their lives, and they know that I consider them to be my kids. Darling Husband has the ultimate authority over them at our house, of course, since he is their father. However, he certainly has reinforced my role as a parental figure in their lives.

Your stepchildren are much younger than mine, and it sounds as if you will fulfill the role of primary female caretaker in their lives. Don’t be afraid to fall in love with them, and to allow them to fall in love with you. Also, as long as their visits with their mother are safe and emotionally healthy for them, don’t be afraid to encourage them to have the best relationship possible with their mother and to love their mother. They will only love you all the more for that some day. One of the reasons my adult stepdaugther is able to love me so much, I think, is that she knows that I show love to and respect for her mother.

I wish you the best! Please let me know if you ever want to discuss this more. I would be happy to try to help!

ETA: In the midst of my writing such a long post (and getting some laundry started in between), I realized that I forgot to ask you what you meant about your Fiance “having an accident” that required your forgiveness and resulted in him telling you it would never happen again. Are you speaking of him having become involved with another woman since you’ve been in a committed relationship/engaged?